Fat Rat da Czar w/ Grand Royal, Ben Starr, Randy Bruce, Cole Connor

When: Fri., Nov. 15 2013

ProvidedCole Connor

hip-hop, 9 p.m.

South Carolina is not a rapper’s delight. Just ask Sumter’s Cole Connor. “It’s tough man. There is so much bad-quality songs, business, and music in general floating around down here that when good artists with good sounds, a positive message, and unique concepts come around, people don’t know whether to believe it or not,” Connor says. “People become used to bad-quality music and can’t recognize the good stuff.” Fortunately, the rapper has joined forces with some of the state’s best, like FatRat Da Czar, to form a hip-hop movement, NewSC, to make sure that the public pays attention. “We have a team of talented people ready to show the world what South Carolina is capable of.” Speaking of showing the world, Connor is set to release his debut album, Through the Stampede on Nov. 26, and if you want to know what to expect, just queue up his single “kNOwledge,” a bumping, organ-driven diss of higher ed that sounds like a track from the novelty-and-message-powered hip-hop of the pre-G Funk era. “This song really means a lot to me. It really is about what I was starting to see school and education in America as, and it was huge for me because my whole life was based around going to college. All of high school was about getting into a good college, and I was about to throw all that away to chase a dream that may not work out,” Connor says. —Chris Haire FRIDAY